The magic of EXPERIENCE...

There are a lot of systems on a Super Yacht that cargo ships simply do not have. A lot of being a Captain on a Super Yacht is dealing with 5 star service and guests. Appearance is huge on a Superyacht.

In a few words, being a superyacht captain is not so much being a captain as taking care of a precious gadget and fit in with a very special lifestyle. This takes another kind of experience.

Commercial vs. Yacht Captain is just very different, isn't not a matter of one being harder than the other. The very fact that you don't know the difference between the qualifications and job responsibilities of the two, shows how unprepared you are to Captain a yacht.

If you want to make the switch, you're going to have to take a lesser position initially, be willing to be a mate, then junior captain and then perhaps move on to your own yacht.

While there is a lot very unrealistic on the series, I would recommend you watch a couple of episodes of Below Deck. You'll be responsible for Chef's that don't like criticism, of young and immature stews and deck hands, and handling some great guests and owners but some entirely unreasonable ones. If you're handling charters then every one is supposed to be the vacation of their lives. If working for an owner, you'll be responsible for keeping everything going. One position that gets left off Below Deck is an Engineer and a boat that size would or should have one. However, if you got on a boat without one then that falls to you.

You deal with upset people if you can't get good television or internet access. You deal with a lot of people who have had a lot to drink. You have to hire and fire crew.

It can be a good career, but if you walk in thinking you know it all, you'll be in big trouble. You have some knowledge and skills to bring that most don't. However, you're lacking other training. You need hospitality training.

These are all good responses.
Driving the boat is only about 5% of my job (even though we put in lots of sea miles, and are underway most days). Most of my responsibilities are managing crew/owner expectations and experiences.
Try looking at it from the other side of things- If I were to call a shipping company, and ask if there were an open Captain position, I would be met with the same roadblocks. They may say "You have no experience with large ships". And my response would be "Well, ships remain in deep water and deep ports (with pilots aboard)." My reply would be, "Well, I've managed to get myself around the world, sometimes into uncharted waters without the aid of a pilot".

So going forward, I think OB has given some good advice. You'll have to work your way up from a junior officer position. I would focus on very large yachts (80m+).

Good comment on the very large yachts as they have more levels. You work up on them and then ultimately get a job on a smaller yacht if you desire. They also have the luxury of enough crew that some know what they're doing so they can afford to train some newer ones.

You obviously read nothing any of us wrote. You've obviously been told by those not even willing to interview you, just as you were by us, that you are not currently qualified to manage a yacht. The fact you still believe you are makes it very difficult for anyone to train you. If you got a position as a junior officer and went in thinking you knew as much as the senior, it would be bad. Good luck in your career quest. I personally wouldn't consider you qualified to captain a megayacht, superyacht or any other crewed yacht with owners or charter guests. That's not meant as a personal attack as you are probably a very nice person, but you asked a question, 5 people answered and you chose to ignore and devalue everything written by those five.

Hi Zibi,

Having come to yachting from your world, I fully understand your frustration. With the proliferation of very large yachts, those over 3000 tons, and the advent of "passenger yachts" the demand for unlimited licensed mariners is growing and your license certainly has more value in this industry than in the past.

Several members have mentioned that there is a "difference" between yachting and commercial shipping, those members may not realize just how great that difference really is since most don't share your experience or background on which to make a valid comparison, no more than you can compare your experience with theirs. I believe that is the source of frustration for mariners who want to transition from shipping to yachting. There really is no comparison.

Ken nailed it when he said driving the boat is only 5 percent of the job. A large part of the other 95 percent is pure magic.

Almost anyone can drive a yacht, anyone can pick up a cell phone and get the thing fixed anywhere in the world, there is no magic in operating the machine and safely moving between ports. Some do it with more finesse than others but the risk factors in yachting are so very low compared to operating a boxboat in the liner trade that again, there is no comparison.

Where you are having problems is in not understanding that yachting is, to be cynical about it, theater. It is image, theme, plot, and a fantastic stage performance. A good yacht captain is producer, director, stage manager, and promoter.

Many of the captains of the new yachts >3000 tons actually come from yachting, they were sent to school to obtain the unlimited license they need to serve on those boats. Not all that many come directly from the commercial sector. It is far easier for a yachty to get an unlimited license (like it or not) and do a superb job managing the theater than it is for a professional mariner to move "down" to the smaller boat.

Driving and maintaining a yacht is easy, a lot of idiots do a good job of it every day all over the world. Managing a yacht whose furnishing alone may be worth more than a new boxboat and fulfilling the expectations of the people who own or charter the yacht is not taught in a class at any maritime academy or onboard a working ship. Knowing how to supervise those who maintain a museum quality interior and exterior condition and appearance is not a traditional maritime skill, it is learned by watching, listening, and doing.

Your best bet to get a foundation from which to apply for a senior yachting position might be to serve as a senior officer or staff captain on a cruise ship. Spend the time dealing with people whose expectations are probably very foreign to you. You need support from and the respect of people who know what a yacht is and how it works, and unless you can impress them with your ability to manage the theater, it aint going to happen.

Good luck.

Dear Captain,

I do agree 100 % with the above posts of Ken Bracewell and Marmot. Ken is a most experienced captain of a larger circumnavigating yacht himself and Marmot has a lot of inside knowledge of the industry, both in commercial shipping and yachting.

I hold a professional mariner license myself and used to command large cargo ships in my fathers shipping company. After having taken over the company, I mostly have to fly my desk in the headoffice but I am also the owner of a larger yacht and operate some others for my greater family. So I assume, I know a little bit of both worlds.

I do not know Your nationality but in my personal opinion, your age is one part of the problem. Stepping into the "megayacht" world at Your age and then asking for a commanding position upon entering is pretty tough and demanding. I have tried to talk one or the other of my commercial skippers, which were much yonger than You, into a yacht captain job on one of our yachts. They had a lot of trouble adopting to this totally different world. Actually only one made that step and is still with us. But he was not choosen for being a great cargo skipper, he was known to be also a grat sailor.

A commercial skipper is a master and commander and only responsible to the ownership / charter company, which are normally far away and only interested in the results. Means, safe and on time delivery of your cargo at Your port of call or destination. A cargo vessel is just a working tool to make money and so are the crew. A Megayacht is a live stile and a way of living and with the ownership or guests on board.

A yacht captain is also in charge of his boat / ship with most of the duties of a commercial mariner but he is as Ken and Marmot perfectly stated, a service provider and the Maître de Plaisir. The faired, high gloss exterior and the mostly high quality interior needs much more care than the simple exterior and outfit of a cargo ship. Your are not only running a ship, You are also in charge of a luxury hotel and floating resort.

And owners and guests of megayachts are a bit different from cargo. They have demands and expectations and especially on charter boats sometimes very exclusive tastes and whishes. And they argue and complain if not pampered properly. And to some extend, they can, as they pay a lot of money for a week of charter or the ownership of this yacht.

IMHO, Your only chance of entering this world with Your age and commercial background, is to go via the cruise ship world or try to get a position on one of those larger shadow boats. They are a kind of hybrid of both worlds, partly mega yacht, partly cargo / support vessel. The closest You might get to a megayacht, is to one of those mini cruise ships / megayachts in the Med, which are mostly run by greek companies.

Just my 2 (Euro) cents

The discussion is way above my pay-grade, but...

I gather, from what the others have said, that if running the boat accounts for about 5% of the time, then maybe managing systems is another 5%, managing crew (that you can fire and replace, if you need to) is another 5%, maybe port issues (including bribery if necessary?) another 5%...

And that leaves about 80% to be "managing" the hotel and guests.

Just guessing at numbers to illustrate the point, but it sounds to me like not having luxury hotel experience is your stumbling block, here. Not that you couldn't, maybe; perhaps only that you can't cite experience.

A similar situation, at much smaller scale: I can drive and manage a 200 ton boat, have credentials, have a couple decades experience... and no way in (heck?) could I qualify to manage a luxury charter with paying guests. Two reasons no one would hire me to do that; one is that I have no experience with luxury guests, and the other is that when asked, I would admit I prefer the keelhaul solution to guest complaints. I suspect that latter would be a showstopper.

-Chris

Chris I like Your sense of humour. We used to take 12 passengers on our combined cargo / passenger vessels. This was exactly the world were captains sometimes were thinking about keelhauling complaining passengers. Our ships were operating on the Germany to South America route with long non stop sea time. One Captain kept saying, do I love containers, they do not complain . These times are gone. Also most cargo vessels have an owner cabin, they do not take regular passengers.

And Zibi, none of us wants to discourage You or advice against taking this route, we are just giving our realistic point of view based on personal experience. In Mallorca and Port Hercules we get dockwalked by very experienced yacht captains of Your age AND with decades of yachting experience. They are not hired just because of age. The crew agencies even do not accept their CVs. The Megayacht world is looking for the smart, good looking, sportive guy in his mid thirties with 30 years of experience in the business (just joking).

May be You try to work as a relief or delivery captain in Your off duty time first to get a food in the door.

And one more item has not been mentioned jet. A megayacht captain needs to be almost a lawyer, at least in the Med. Also being in the EU, each country has some additional tricks to raise funds from luxury yachts. VAT, luxury taxes, customs, safety rules, environmental laws and policies, just name it. One or the other trap is hiding in any harbour.

Operating and commanding a large yacht, especially with charter guests is by no means routine business. It is organizing chaos and the unexpected. That is the main reason, we are not providing our boats for charter.

Yachting is a tough nut to crack these days. Whilst I sure there are some yachts of over 3000 tons with Master Mariners at the helm when its their first yacht, it is the exception to the rule. Age will be against you for sure. Your best chance of getting a break will be to look for deliveries, relief and jobs on boats that do not have as much filler and gloss paint. Once you get your foot in the door you might find it is not what it seems when on the outside looking in. You could also find yourself working with guys and gals who have not done cadetships nor any form of formal training, they have done the required seatime and paid for their own courses and exams, coming with a holier than thou attitude will also be a quick way to find the business is not what you thought it would be.

I am in my early 50's and know others like me who have Chiefs tickets and years of experience in the business and they all say its hard to get a different job unless you know someone so it might not be just a lack of yacht time that's standing in your way.

Lots of great responses to the original post in just 24 hours.

Another facet that hasn't been touched on yet, is that the master of a commercial vessel is managing a money making enterprise. It's a business.

The megayachts, gigayachts, whatever you want to call them, are a huge expense for the owners, even the ones that defray some expense by chartering. The master of a yacht, maestro of the theatre, must do his utmost to ensure that the owner gets what he wants out of the experience. After all, if he is having a bad time on his boat, and the boat is a financial whirlpool, sooner or later he isn't going to be in yachting anymore.